Saturday, March 13, 2010

I learned how to tell time long, long ago. I have no memory of the process, it's just one of those things you learn early and never forget. But, I learned to tell time in a part of the world that uses AM and PM to differentiate between the time before lunch, and the time after. Then I moved to Denmark, and ... my ability to tell time has been blown to bits.

Why? Well, you see, over here they use a 24 hr clock. Where I come from, we call that 'military time' but here, they just call it time. Whether there are armies of soldiers involved or not, it confuses the hell outta me. Oh sure, on paper, it's all rather simple - there are 24 hours in a day and if you just use all 24 when telling time, rather than only 12, it simplifies things and gets rid of that pesky little 'am' and 'pm'. I fully understand the concept and I do agree that it does make a bit of sense, but my brain cannot compute the times on short notice. It's not that I don't know that 17 means 5pm, it's just that when the world is moving quickly, and I'm not paying attention, 17 is meaningless. And this... this gets me into trouble now and then.

Exhibit A: A couple of weeks ago, we had the dogs at the swimming hall on a Saturday. There's an appointment book there where you choose your next swimming time and write in your name to reserve the time. We were on our way out and decided to book a time for Wednesday evening. I ran to the book, scrolled quickly through the available times, and jotted our names down for 6:30 pm. As we were loading the dogs into the car, something in my brain was triggering me that some bit of something, somewhere, wasn't quite right. So, because of that little nagging voice, I ran back inside to double-check the time I'd chosen. Yep, okay, 6:30 it is. All set. Or so I thought.

When we arrived Wednesday evening, right on time, the owner started to tell Ole that we had missed our time, but that we were lucky, as no one was scheduled so we would still be able to swim. I'm thinking.. huh? How did we miss our time? Let's go to the videotape (or in this case, the appointment book). What time had I chosen? 16:30... um, oops. Yep, I had chosen 4:30 pm, not 6:30 pm, and despite my brain's best attempt to warn me of my error, another part of my brain just couldn't see that pesky little "1" standing in front of the 6:30.

Exhibit B: And just the other day, while on the phone, we were discussing an upcoming event and whether or not we'd be attending. I had received an email with the details of the event and I had read said email earlier in the day. When Ole mentioned that it may start too early for us, I quickly replied that I thought we'd be fine as it didn't start until 7 or 7:30.

I went back later to sign us up only to discover that we will be late in arriving. I'm guessing by now, you can probably figure out why.

Friday, March 5, 2010

For the first time in over 15 years, I watched a hockey game from beginning to end. Not only that, but I watched a 2nd hockey game, in the same weekend, from beginning to nearly the end, and a 3rd game for about the last 20 minutes. Last weekend was all about hockey, hockey, hockey.

The last time before last weekend was the 1994 Stanley Cup finals where I watched the NY Rangers win the cup and end a 54-year drought in winning their first cup since 1940. It was a HUGE game if you lived anywhere in or around NYC and was something not to be missed.

On Friday evening, we headed out to a hockey game that wasn't quite so newsworthy! It was an event planned for a new international society. There was a fantastic turn-out with about 100 people, including both internationals living in Denmark, as well as Danes. It was really exciting and a great kick-off to what I hope becomes a regular part of our lives! We had a sandwich, a beer and a hockey game all for just 50 kr. per person, which is about $10 and let me tell you, entertainment does not come this cheap in DK! Incredible.

The game was the Herning hockey team against the Esbjerg team, in Herning. Now, as this new group is for those living in and around Herning, the general idea was that those who attended would be routing for the home team. Slight problem with that in this household. The 'home' team for my dane would be Esbjerg! But, given that our tickets were smack in the middle of the Herning fans, and the fact that despite all of our cheering and hopes for a good game there were no goals scored while we were there, in the end, it didn't matter that a traitor was in our midst! About that lack of goals thing... after 3 periods with no score, the game went into overtime. After the first overtime period, still with no score, we decided that beating the traffic out was more important than seeing the game to the end, and, after standing for over an hour (hey, 50 kr. remember - no seats!), it was time. Some pictures...

Upon arriving home from the game, I discovered that the USA was in the middle of kicking some serious hockey butt at the Olympics against Finland. I was able to find a live stream of the game and watched the last 15 minutes or so of that one. Suddenly, I was totally sucked into the hockey madness!

And Sunday night, I joined the masses in watching the Gold medal game against Canada. It was a nail-biter and emotional roller-coaster from start to finish and while the end was a crushing blow, I'm glad I was able to watch it even from the other side of the world.